


New Depression

by trepidatingboarfetus



Category: Grand Theft Auto Series (Video Games), Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Catholic Guilt, Consequences, Depression, F/M, Gen, M/M, Other Kinds of Guilt, Post-Ludendorff, Pre-2013, Regret, Trevor is only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28126422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trepidatingboarfetus/pseuds/trepidatingboarfetus
Summary: He's slipping into the bottom of a whiskey bottle, more and more.The B Side to Trevor's A Side fic, Habits.
Relationships: Amanda De Santa/Michael De Santa, Michael De Santa/Trevor Philips
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	New Depression

**Author's Note:**

> The short companion piece to Habits. 
> 
> The song New Depression is by Radiator Hospital.

_ Won't it be nice when it's all a memory? _

_ Almost forgotten, barely thought of _

_ Always hanging on the tip of your tongue _

_ But you just can't place it when push comes to shove _

_ Had a bad night again _

_ Cried about everything _

_ Wept and bawled till there was nothin' in my eyes _

_ Can't seem to start my head _

_ Feelin' my book is read _

_ Still unsatisfied, much to my surprise _

_ But won't it be nice when there's something you want? _

_ A desire you just can't put your finger on _

_ A yearnin' that's stronger with each rising sun _

_ Beginning of a deep fascination _

_ A light on the road to a new depression _

Whiskey in one hand, ibuprofen in the other. Sometimes it’s almost too simple to bypass the Advil and go straight for the 9mm that sits in the dresser next to this strange bed that’s become his. 

One of the few things left besides his love for movies and fine liquor that adheres him to the Townley name is this gun. Everything else has become this other persona, this other him who was just a cast-off name once upon a time but has turned into a wholly individual being. 

Even Amanda and the kids have adapted to their new roles so well it’s as if nothing exists of the family he used to know and love. He looks for signs of them every day in their actions and words, but all that is before him now are empty husks that have been shucked. He doesn’t voice his irritation out loud because he knows they were uprooted so quickly, so drastically. Hell, it’s not as if he wasn’t traumatized too, for fuck’s sake.

Amanda misses her sisters and a couple of friends who were leftovers from her old profession, sometimes her controlling parents too, but she has acclimated so skillfully to this new life with expensive tastes, it’s as if she were born into it. 

His kids can’t stand to look at him. As the years go on, they forget old friends because they make new ones, but they can’t forget family. They understand why they had to move, but they don’t agree with the reasoning. Tracey especially despises him since she was closer to her favorite uncle, unlike Jimmy. She used to barrage him with questions that went unanswered until, after about a year and a half, she finally stopped trying and grew as distant and cold as their previous place of residence. 

He doesn’t blame her. Sleep doesn’t come easily, sometimes not at all. There’s no escape from memories that keep repeating until they become nightmares, and in them, it isn’t Brad who eats the bullet. 

Tracey’s voice yells at him on these nights, poking at him as if he’s one huge festering wound, and that’s what it certainly feels like when she pleads with him to save the only real adult in her life to whom she ever allowed herself to get attached. The tears ooze from every single pore when he hears her cries mingling with the screams coming from a voice he’s tried so hard to lose to time, but no matter how much he strives to do this  _ one thing _ so he can finally let go and move on, he is filled with regret. 

The only place they are left to connect is within the recesses of these fitful terrors, and Trevor haunts him there. He’s never sure if it’s just the delusions of a man gone mad with nostalgia for whom he once was and the person he desired above all else, or if the man he still reaches for during slumber has passed away in a gutter somewhere, and they can only meet in the spaces which border fantasy and the supernatural. 

And not everything is Ludendorff in his head. Sometimes Trevor is right there with him, running hand in hand with him through alleyways, cackling his crazy head nearly off as they barely make an escape from the latest place they’ve robbed, and just as they’re about to touch, he’s interrupted by an overwhelming sorrow, sobbing desperately until his eyes are raw and abused over someone he can never hope to attain again.

They used to get plastered after a job well done, to socialize, to lose themselves in each other’s mouths and arms and legs and wherever else they could make delicious flesh contact, but now he doesn’t care to interact with anyone, and each shot he takes coasts him further away from this constant horrible pain he’s forced into, stuck like a broken record, carried along on a sea made from his weeping. 

Melancholy is an old hat he wears, but it used to be a different style and size. It was guilt, fear, and loathing that he donned back in his youth, but that hat grew smaller and deteriorated until it vanished in the snows of North Yankton.

This new one he sports is made purely from remorse and suffering, and he finds this depression fits him well as he finishes yet another bottle.


End file.
